Kate Aylesford: A Story of the Refugees

by Charles J. Peterson

Accordingly she turned in that direction, and having rested herself partially by the pause, ran forward again until she was quite out of breath. For half an hour, she continued alternately running, walking, and running again, occasionally pausing to listen: and in that time, as she calculated, had traversed between two and three miles. The forest still continued as wild as ever; but this did not alarm her; for she was aware that the wilderness extended to the very doors, as it were, of the settlement at the Forks. She therefore pushed forward, her excitement enabling her to disregard fatigue, and to forget that she had eaten little for a day. For another half an hour, consequently, she hurried on, and as the distance between her and the outlaws was increased, her hopes gradually rose.

Day was now beginning to break. The moon continued to shine as lustrously as ever; indeed, being now nearly at the zenith, her light seemed even more effulgent than when Kate left the hut; but there was a cold, gray hue over the eastern sky which heralded the morning. Gradually the white light of day stole over the orient heavens, when that of the moon assumed a partially sickly cast. The birds too now began to twitter in the underbrush and smaller growth around.

At this point Kate reached an opening in the woods, where the trees had been cut off a year or two ago. On the eastern side of this was a tract of pine land, where a fire had passed, leaving the tall firs standing stripped of their foliage, like a forest of black, charred masts against the heavens. Through this, in the distance, was seen a reddened sky, a proof that the sun, though still below the horizon, was close upon it. The route of Kate lying in the direction of this burnt district, it was not long before she saw the upper edge of his disc emerge, shooting long lines of light towards her, that came glancing between the black trunks of the pines, or bathed the greener space more directly in front with showers of golden radiance. The whole forest around was now alive with twittering birds. Meantime the moon, as if suddenly struck pale by an enchanter’s hand, seemed all at once to have lost its late glorious effulgence, and was now seen, a faint, waning orb, apparently powerless in the zenith. To the right and left, however, in the recesses of the woods, where the sunshine had not yet penetrated, the moonlight still lay, cold and beautiful, though even there less lustrous than it had been.

In a few minutes it grew dim also even in these secluded aisles, fading perceptibly to the eye as in a dissolving view. The sun had now risen completely above the horizon. The exhalations of the night still partially obscured him, however, so that he loomed large and inflamed on the vision. But directly he surmounted the region of these vapors; and at once the whole landscape was flooded with dazzling light. The black, charred pines; the verdant tract of low brush oak; and the arcades that ran before the eye into the forest on every side, glowed with the excess of effulgence: the leaves, that rustled slightly in the wind, flashed in the bright rays: and the moon became a pale, uncertain circle, the affrighted shadow of herself.

For another hour Kate pursued her way, without stopping longer than a few moments at a time, and then only to listen if she was pursued. At the end of that period she began to think that she ought to be in the neighborhood of the Forks. She pressed on, however, till the sun was nearly two hours high, yet without reaching her destination. She now became alarmed. At the pace at which she had been advancing, she ought, she knew, to have arrived at the Forks before this; besides, the road was becoming a mere wood-path; while the forest around was changing its character and assuming that of an impenetrable swamp. She now bethought her to compare the position of the sun with what it would be if she was advancing in the right direction. To her dismay she found that luminary over her left shoulder and behind, instead of in front, and on the right, as it should have been. At this discovery she came to a halt, overcome with the sudden faintness of despair.

During her progress, she had frequently passed other roads, opening into the one she was traversing, but as they were either evidently paths used only by the wood-cutters, or led off at right angles, she had carefully avoided them. Studiously had she kept to what appeared to be the most direct and beaten way, nor until this moment had she thought of testing it by the heavens. Thus she had unconsciously turned her face in the wrong direction, by following its tortuous course.

A moment’s reflection, however, suggested to her that the deviation of the road might be only temporary, though the fact that she had not reached the Forks, as she ought, told against this supposition. Drowning people, it is said, catch at straws, however, and nerving herself with this hope, she started afresh. But after walking for a considerable period longer, and carefully noting the position of the sun all the while, she became convinced that she was receding from the point of her destination, instead of advancing towards it.

When this discovery forced itself on her, nature at last gave way. Overtasked though she had been, hope and energy had kept her up; but now both succumbed together; and her strength departed with them. Sinking tremblingly and powerless on the huge root of a mossy tree, she covered her face with her hands, and burst into sobs like a child.

But, when she had wept for a while, a reaction took place. She started suddenly to her feet.

“Why do I give way thus?” she cried. “Is not anything better than falling again into the hands of those ruffians? Better to drop down and die from sheer exhaustion, than to sit here trembling, like a hunted hare, till I am seized.”